By Anote Ajeluorou
The babble of voices on the
socio-political space sometimes makes it difficult to sift through properly and
winnow out the best and practicable views that best suit Nigeria’s intractable
problems. This is further compounded by policymakers who fit World Bank and
International Monetary Fund-induced solutions to every situation and
circumstance in far removed and alien soil like Nigeria. Prof. Steve Azaiki’s Thoughts on Nigeria: Speeches, Letters and
Essays (Associated Book-makers Nigeria Ltd, 2014) falls into the category
of seminal distillations that are often ignored by Nigeria’s policymakers at
the peril of development. It’s why, in spite of abundance of intellectual input
to socio-political conundrums, the problems still persist, perhaps, that way,
too, those who profit from the problems continue to feed fat on the misery of
the majority.
The
saying ‘do not judge a book by its cover’ is also true for Azaiki’s book. The
author’s photograph on the cover, on a book that is not an autobiography,
wrongly sets it out as one of those ego-massaging, self-glorifying tomes by
Nigeria’s politicians likely to gather dust in private libraries soon after the
fanfare of a launch. But Azaiki is no ordinary politician; he’s an academic
that brings a whole measure of intellectual savvy to the governance table.
Having served as Secretary to the State Government under Governor Diepreye
Alamieyeseigha in Bayelsa State, Azaiki is eminently in a position to make
qualified pronouncements regarding Nigeria’s leadership problems and offer
modest suggestions on the way forward. But also, questions of his stewardship
will also be asked: Is he speaking from hindsight of what might have been done?
What did he and the government he served do to resolve some of these problems
he is now exposing? Having also served during former President Goodluck
Jonathan’s tenure as deputy governor, couldn’t he have put in a word or two to
help stem the drift that assailed the country’s recently political history,
especially the reverses that he contends National Economic Empowerment and
Development Strategy (NEEDS) represent for the people of the Niger Delta and
other low income, excluded areas?
These
are some of the observable issues that arise from Azaiki’s postulations in his seminally
researched essays and speeches that have the endorsement of former President
Shehu Shagari, who wrote the forward to the book. These essays and speeches are
clearly beyond the drill of some of the workaday run of politicians striding
the land. Indeed, Azaiki is probably not writing for now, when democracy equals
how much a politician can grab for his pocket while the majority wallows in
abject poverty. This is why the emergence of an a properly educated crop of
Nigerians that understand what development means and how it can be deployed to
best serve the interests of segments of the Nigerians in their diverse
sociological backgrounds is an imperative for the author. This postulation is
at the heart of Azaiki’s Thoughts on
Nigeria.
The
book is divided into four parts although the themes or topics necessarily
dovetail into one another, with a concern for the peculiar problems of minority
Niger Delta inexorably confounded by oil politics. The first part is ‘On
Governance and Politics’, with a telling first chapter on oil and gas and the
leadership opportunity available for Nigeria. Sadly, Nigeria has repeatedly
failed to cash in on such opportunities at the global level because the country
fails to address inequities at home, what with the criminal neglect of
oil-bearing communities both by the federal Government and the oil companies.
The same neglect, Azaiki argues, attends Nigeria’s inability to diversify the
economy with revenues from oil wealth, with the result that unemployment
remains unacceptably high. The oil companies have their head offices in Lagos,
a situation that necessarily denies Niger Delta youth employment opportunities
in the oil exploited on their land.
According to the author, “We, as a major oil exporting nation, must use
our oil to diversify exports and invest the bonanza in better roads and
seaports, invest in education, manpower training, technology transfer and
health services… We as a nation must address inequities in Nigerian politics.
Oloibiri in Bayelsa State, where oil was first discovered in 1956-1958 must be
indelibly etched within Nigeria’s consciousness, and not left barren as an
after-thought of yesteryears”.
This
essay was written during the Olusegun Obasanjo era. But clearly neither
Obasanjo nor Jonathan heeded this sound advice. Even the road to Obasanjo’s Ota
or the East-West Road to Jonathan’s Bayelsa was made during their tenures. The
seaports of Warri, Port Harcourt, Calabar and Onne remain ghost ports under
Jonathan. There’s, therefore, disconnect in scholarly postulations or advice
and the realities of development in the land, a situation that has hobbled and
stunted the country’s growth.
Azaiki’s
is a man of patriotic fervour; for him, being in government is not the only way
to serve his fatherland. Having left office, he set up the National Think Tank of
like-minded Nigerians to help formulate policies for governments both at state
and federal levels. In setting up the National Think Tank, Azaiki argues,
“Given our political and economic antecedents and status in the comity of
developing nations, we believe that the time has come for Nigeria to take its
rightful position in world affairs. As one of the fastest growing, developing
nations, Nigeria is expected to show leadership in the delivery of public
service. We have, therefore, found it highly important that, in order to
achieve good public governance, several factors come to play. Bearing these in
mind, this Think Tank will provide a basis for analyzing the areas of success
or failures of public governance in Nigeria and proffer credible solutions to
the country’s myriad of socio-economic and political problems...”
The professor of Agriculture also writes on other issues of development
and governance, especially as happened in recent collective memory. Such issues
as Boko Haram, rash of impeachments,
the sort that saw his former boss, Alamieyeseigha out of office in what he
describes as strange circumstances akin to political witch-hunting, corruption,
Bayelsa State under Sen. Seriake Dickson and a host of others.
‘On Niger Delta’ makes up part two of Azaiki’s Thoughts on Nigeria in which he devotes a lot of intellectual
energy on issues plaguing the region that effectively feeds Nigeria, but which
still has nothing to show for this economic bleeding that leaves a region and
its people in bewildering abject poverty. Here, Azaiki argues that government’s
developmental efforts through such policy as NEEDS have done far worse to
deepen poverty rather than alleviate it. Apart from the physical poverty
charactersised by the inability of the people to live well, as a result of
polluted waterways and farmlands that starve them of their livelihood, Azaiki
also points out a more deadly kind of poverty – educational poverty, which he
says will keep the region’s coming generation perpetually poor and in
disadvantage with their peers from other parts of the country.
The author argues that the rash of privatization and commercialization of
government’s utilities, including the all-important social service like
education, has devalued education currently offered in public schools. As a
result, government now fails to budget adequately for education, which is
contracted out to the highest bidder. This shortfall in educational budgeting will
mean that the poor, a condition in perpetuity among the marginalized majority
of Niger Delta citizens, cannot afford quality education for their children, as
the oil resources of the region go to finance educational projects in other
parts of Nigerian. This leaves them in the throes of poorly equipped schools
and trained teachers, as local and state governments increasingly find it hard
to cater for the huge educational needs of the region. This approach, which the
author calls macroeconomic management of development that does not take into
account the peculiar needs of special areas that are already at a disadvantage
for which the Niger Delta falls compounds the problems of the region. This is
moreso when the region is denied full benefit of its oil wealth, a policy that
excludes majority of the Niger Delta poor.
As Azaiki states, “Under this framework, government has a purely
regulatory role as education at all levels is now a commodity. As a result,
NEEDS has deeply impacted the right to free, equal, and high quality education
thereby excluding some citizens from participating in growing the economy and
denying them from being integrated in a meaningful way in the long-run… the
narrow mechanism of NEEDS as inadequate for the scale of a problem which
requires broad-based measures…”
With part three as ‘Tributes’ and part four is ‘On International/Contemporary
Issues’ that are dear to the author’s heart, Azaiki’s book effectively plumbs
the depths of some of the problems plaguing the country. This is a book for now
and the future that will help direct the course of good governance that has
been lacking in Nigeria’s democracy since 1999. With President Muhammadu
Buhari’s ‘Change’ mantra and his promise to feed school children every day, the
first step would be to rethink NEEDS and its anti-poor stance in commoditizing
education in line with Azaiki’s conception. Clearly, Azaiki’s former boss,
Jonathan missed the road on NEEDS with regard to the Niger Delta.
Indeed, governors in the region will do well to read this book and
redirect their thinking caps for better performance. Azaiki’s intellect shines
through in this commendable work of dispassionate political rendering.